BP12_2009103_Reflective Media Asset #2

Here is my Web 2.0 tool review on Gliffy a flowcart tool.

BP10_2009103 Researching and Blogging Web 2.0 Tools

This next web 2.0 tool sparks my interest, but I need more time to really figure out and if it will work at my school because of so many blocks with out network towards chat/social community and similiar websites. I have been reading up on it and hope to talk one of my coworkers into trying it with me. Its a live web conferencing tool. Why would we need to use a conferencing tool at school? well there are several reasons you could use a conferencing tool. I know there are times when I would love a guest speaker to come in to talk to some of my students in many of my classes, but most usually its an issue of time or distance. this could be a great way of solving this situation. You dont have to download anything for this program to work. You can share desktops with others or start a guest session etc. My department at school is sort of split up where we are almost never in the same area of the building and if we are it is usually in passing so we really dont have a time where we are all together. So many times throughout the day we will have a quick questions to ask about projects, students, who has my supplies or did I leave some worksheets in that classroom (because we share classrooms). This might be a great way of being able to keep in touch when we are at different ends of the building. I know there are times when i have a quick question for one of the secretaries in the office, but don't want the entire classroom to hear me on the intercom. This also might be a great way to be in contact with the office to learn about a students whereabouts, student going home sick or notifying Guidance that I am sending a student up who has a problem with their schedule.

http://vyew.com/site/index2

BP9_2009103 Researching and Blogging Web 2.0 Tools

After using the lucid chart and dabbleboard programs, I thought that I would definitely use one of these programs in my robotics class. As part of that class I teach a few different programs and usually it is better to start the program by sketching out an idea of what you plan to do by creating a flow chart. In the past I have passed out paper for the students to create a flow chart, but sometimes, I get some interesting things especially when they change their program and decided to be lazy and scribble out things or barely erase or change the lines to run off the page and onto another, it becomes more confusing. Last year we tried to use an autodesk program to create flow charts, but many of the students didn't have access to the program at home because this program was something that was part of a package the school had. So, searching for interesting web 2.0 programs, I ran across another flowchart type of program called gliffy. I feel it is very much like the other programs but I seem to prefer this one over the other two that were introduced in the previous class. This one allows you to create connector lines with different angles and also adds a gradient to the fill box, I feel it allows you to do more. Like the others this program, this one also allows you with the ability to share document to others. This would work out great so that the students can share with me instead of having to print it out and hand it in or email it to me. This way they can add me and I can view it at any time. Here the students can create a flow chart using the program and I dont have to worry about not being able to read or understand where some of their lines are going or what kind of shape they are trying to create. http://www.gliffy.com

BP11_2009103 Comment on Web2.0 blogpost

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2009

JamLegend

JamLegend is similar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The URL is http://www.go2web20.net/app/?a=JamLegend.com.

“JamLegend lets you play a rocking guitar game online for free. It features a limitless song library, massive multiplayer, tournaments and social features. Like the games Gruitar Hero and Rock Band, JamLegend simulates the thrill of rocking out for a sold out crowd while enabling features never before available in console games.”

JamLegend is an online platform for music gaming. This site can host tournaments where hundreds of users can be engaged with the game and with the music. This does not limit the number of artists, songs, or genres available on the platform. This is a good way for artists to promote and market themselves online.

JamLegend is similar to Guitar Hero in that you can play against someone else or play against the computer.

A classroom application for this game is to reward students for good work or behavior by letting them listen to various of music. There are 259 artist to choose from and various genres of music to choose from too. Playing this game actually can improve student’s rhythmic accuracy.Notes will fall to the beat of the song and then you press the right key when the note gets to the bottom, just like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

The tutorial and instructions were quite helpful. You can upload songs and customize your page and link to other sites and you can link to Facebook and play with friends.

1 comments:

D. Tomaszewski said...

I think this is a great website. O have found talking to the music teachers in my school and also teaching Drafting courses that many of the kids have lots of problems with fractions. Now this might not be the perfect program for teaching fractions, but 1/4 note, 1/8 note etc are used in music. So this could be another great way of introducing fractions through music.

October 18, 2009 4:36 PM

BP8_2009103 Researching and Blogging Web 2.0 Tools

This site maybe just a simple site to create an additional fun activity for students to work on terminology by creating a puzzle. Discovery offers an education website that allows you to create many different types of puzzles from word searches to crossword puzzles. I fell by using fun interesting things could help the kids learn the important terms in your lesson. You can create the word search to specific sizes for the amount of letters across and down. (Up to 40.) Then begin to enter all the words you plan to include into the word search. The program does try to check for offensive words sometimes created randomly. So it is important for you to proof read your word search just incase. If you do find something that shouldn't be there, its easy to create a new word search. This website also has a link to hundreds of clip art. This way you can add that interesting eye catcher to your handouts and even your website. http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/

BP7_2009102 Flickr lesson plan

I was able to find a lesson plan on the web that included Flickr. It was a Thanksgiving lesson plan and it stated possible areas to research for Thanksgiving. The way the lesson plan included Flickr was to search for picture that were or could relate to Thanksgiving. I probably wouldnt do a esson plan about Thanksgiving, but I like the ability to search for pictures and images. Teaching art, it can be hard to draw something without a reference. By looking at a picture, I can easily get ideas of colors, size, texture, light and shadow and more of the picture the students are trying to draw. The students are always looking for ideas for subject matter to draw or paint and having the tagging of photos may open up more paths to the picture they would want to create or give them ideas of what they will need to search for their next project.

BP6_2009102_Reflective Media Asset

Here is my video on the Web 2.0 tool. Hope you enjoy it.

BP5_2009102_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0

There is so much out there for the web 2.0 tools that is difficult to figure out which ones I want to talk about. But let me start off with one that am somewhat familiar with. Google SketchUp. http://sketchup.google.com/ I use this tool in my Drawing and Architectural Drafting classes to help me teach the students about different topics. This tool helps in different ways in regards with my Drawing class. When I am teaching 1 point and 2-point perspective, I often will start off by teaching the students on the whiteboard to try to get the basics of the techniques. Afterward I begin to use other method to show examples and this is where SketchUp helps in the demonstrations. SketchUp allows you to create a building in a 2-point perspective and the ability to apply texture to the buildings and also control the sun’s location to create shadows determined by the time of day. With the aide of this tool, I am able to demonstrate, texture, perspective, light and shadow.

The next site is one that my students often use and allows me to take a look at some of the art that they are creating on their own and posting onto the internet so that others can see and comment on its called deviantART. Its more of a tool to allow student to share their work, I would almost picture it as an online art gallery that anyone has the ability to post artwork. Students like to see what other kids their age are creating and also figure out what types of programs are they using to create the art. I hope to incorporate this website into the class so that every student has to have an account and must post their artwork. This could make it easier for me to take a look at their artwork for grading if needed. http://www.deviantart.com/

The last web 2.0 tool I have found and haven’t had the time to play with it too much, but the time I have spent with it, I have really enjoyed it and hope to get a chance to explore the possibilities. Its called Pencil. Located at http://www.pencil-animation.org/index.php?id=Home This s a great website that anyone can download the animation program to create traditional animation cartoons using bitmap and vector graphics similar to Flash, but free. The website has a forum to communicate with the other members, user manuals and a gallery. I think this will be a great asset to my graphic art classes.

BP4_2009102 Educational Uses for Social Bookmarking

Delicious isn’t something new to me, but I would have to say this is the most time I have spent using this site.

When I was first introduced to Delicious, I wasn’t impressed. It probably didn’t help that the person trying to explain it to me really didn’t do a good job explaining all the possibilities that come with this bookmarking site, after all, I have my favorites tabs with all my bookmarks in my computer.

Delicious isn’t something new to me, but I would have to say this is the most time I have spent using this site.

When I was first introduced to Delicious, I wasn’t impressed. It probably didn’t help that the person trying to explain it to me really didn’t do a good job explaining all the possibilities that come with this bookmarking site, after all, I have my favorites tabs with all my bookmarks in my computer.

While taking some time to research, why social bookmarking may benefit educators and learners, I realized that this could help with many of my classes with the ability to research information and share information through keywords and tags. I am also not limited to having all my bookmarks on one computer so I can access them from several different computers and not worry about bookmarking the page on every computers I use. “Social bookmarking sites turns the hierarchical model upside down. In the past an individual might have saved their favorites or bookmarks on their local computer. Their bookmarks might have been organized under a few general headings. The social bookmarking web site allows individuals to store their bookmarks on the Internet and make them accessible anywhere.” (Teaching-Hacks 2007)

It is beneficial with the ability to add your own information to describe what the website is about. “When you “bookmark” a site with del.icio.us, you can add your own description and tags to help you remember what it is and to help you find it again in the future. You can search for sites using words from the description field, words you used in the extended description field or in the tags you used when the site was saved.” (Muir 2005)

I can keep many of my researched information separated by subject through the tags with certain keywords. “Maintain an on-line folder of research material and reference sites: any kind of write can take advantage of bookmarking. Bookmarking’s power just continues to increase with every new website, article, or document that’s posted on the World Wide Web. In fact, virtually any content creator can use this method to track valuable information.”(Dykeman 2007)

With the ease of being able to bookmark a website and add key tags words to your searches, it becomes easier to gather information and be able to determine which information is relevant to your needs.

References

Muir, D. (2005). Del.icio.us social bookmarking or tagging for teaching. Retrieved October 10, 2009 from http://personal.strath.ac.uk/d.d.muir/Delicious1_2.pdf

Dykeman, M. (2007). Nine Notable Uses for Social Bookmarking. Retrieved October 10, 2009 from http://webupon.com/social-bookmarking/nine-notable-uses-for-social-bookmarking/

(2007). Social bookmarking tools- Teaching Hacks. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.teachinghacks.com/wiki/index.php?title=Social_bookmarking_tools

iGoogle Screenshots

BP2_2009101_Anti-Teaching

After reading the articles, I found that I really enjoyed the Anti-Teaching and the PLE article. They both are really about creating your own Personal Learning Environment. The anti-teaching article, the author, Michael Wesch mentioned ?My job becomes less about teaching and more about encouraging students to join me on the quest.? That is sort of how I feel in my classes. I am there to help guide them into learning about my class, my ?elective? class. Our school is Technology Based, so every student is issued a laptop computer. And as a resource, we the teachers tend to utilize the fact that our students have access to many areas that most students cannot view on their own at school. In my art classes, I use the internet to aide in teaching about art history, but the projects are not like my college classes (similar to what was described in the anti-teaching article) of sitting in a HUGE lecture hall listening to the instructor, who cant speak English well. Sine we have access to the Internet, the students are to come up several websites that will inform them about a certain artist or style of art. Once they feel they know or can find the information about the subject, the student now lectures to me about the subject. Is it really a lecture? I don?t think so; I will stop them and ask them a question. About the subject, maybe specific dates or ask the definition of a word, but they are allowed to use the computer and hopefully they have already seen or read the question. If they cannot answer within like 30 seconds, then I ask them to take their time, find the information and come back to tell me about it when they have found it. I feel it takes the teaching out of my hands and allows the student to do the learning then share their findings with me. Many of my other classes also have similar types of projects from architectural house styles, rise and run, kitchen cabinet sizes, in my architecture and engineering classes. Zodiac signs, photoshopcontest.com, advertisements and colors in graphic design classes and programming, robotics, electronics, competitions, hands on building and programming of robots to do specific tasks and interacting with other teams through emails and the FIRST website in my robotics class.

know anything about the google bookmarks?

I was not sure what the google bookmarks were, I went through the PLE stuff a few times thinking that maybe I missed it, but couldnt find anything on it. So I did a search in the gadgets and found many gadgets to use... so which one? and where to put it? I sent an email to the instructor asking for some help, but I am wondering if FSO is still having problems and if she even got it, because I havent gotten a response yet and the project is due tonight. So I will add a google bookmark in the ETC tab. if its wrong I can change it later.

lol... maybe not........

oh well.. i thought it would stay on this page, but i guess it doesnt... hope its correct..

ok.. learning how to do this..

So, I am wondering why I cant find the RSS blog I wrote earlier in Blogger. Trying to figure this thing out, I click on Blogger: My Blog just above, then I am finally redirected to the Blogger page where I wrote everything. Now, if I am correct, I write here and it will go directly to Blogger and stay here. If you would like to see what I wrote for my RSS subscriptions, click on the Blogger: My Blog.

BP1_2009101_RSS choices

At first this was a bit overwhelming and wasn't sure what to choose to put into my google reader. I wandered around the google reader website trying to figure out how to use it when I finally realized that you can search for certain topics or subjects. The first few words I entered were not successful as I was coming up with information that probably wouldn't help me. Then I came across The Metropolitan Museum of Art subscription and listened to the special exhibition: Vermeer's Masterpiece, The Milkmaid. I listened to it and thought it was great! A few of the art teachers and I have been planning to go on a field trip to a museum and haven't really come to a decision partially because we were not sure of the artwork on display, I think this subscription will help us determine what artwork is on display and I can also use it in teaching art history to my students in class.

The next subscription I chose was the MoMa (Museum of Modern Art) on Twitter. This site continues to update on what artwork is being shown and what's going on with the museum.

The next site was the FIRST Robotics. With this site I am able to keep up to date on the Regional events, deadlines and information about the competitions. Last year was our first year in participating in the competition and hope to continue to compete and the more informed we are the better

The next website is actually one that I use from time to time in my class and happened to find it here in a subscription. Makes it easier to be able to log on and everything is here in one place. its Cprogramming.com This website gives me references for myself and I will often refer this site to the students so when I am not around helping someone else, they are able to check this site to see if they are able to find the answers they need.

Another site I subscribed to was Drummond House plans. I was originally looking for Architectural drafting/terminology/house styles, but came across this site that has many house plans with developed house floor plans with elevations and perspectives of the house. Not really what I was looking for, but while researching the site some more, I found that it did talk more about the different house styles and why specific house styles are found in certain regions of the country. Perfect for my architectural drafting class.

test

this is a test #2 to figure out what I am doing....